Health, Wealth and Wellness

As I sit here, on the second day of 2010, I am contemplating moving forward for our family. What does that mean? A little back story might help a bit.

I have been battling anemia for several months now. It is on the up swing, but is taking alot of effort. I am taking my vitamins, 2 tablespoons of black strap molasses a daay, taking my iron supplement, in the form of Floradix, and up until my birthday last month, I as making green smoothies about once a week. The smoothies consisted of spinach, banana, lemon juice, water, agave nectar and water. I added ice for crunch, but some do it without the ice.

I had been told for some time that juicing would be the way to go. However, I did not have a juicer. Enter my mother on my bierthday. Praise the Lord, she bought me a juicer, and now their no turning back. I have been juicing about a half a beet a day with carrots, and celery and then I alternate things like garlic, parsley, spinach, apples, oranges, etc..

Just prior to getting the juicer, we started a compost. Made our own bin, and had been adding our fruit and vegetable waste, coffee grounds, egg shells, and paper and yard clippings. Now with the juicer, we are adding so much more to the composter on a regular basis.. daily..

Last summer, I had wanted to start a garden. For several reasons; I wanted high quality foods, and I needed it to be cheap! My husband lost his job in December of 08 and while he is currently working we are only making a small fraction of what he was making before. And I had felt we were only make enough before. So, our hopes was that we would have a successful garden.

We did very well starting out, I started all my seeds in the little cups, etc.. and between children knocking them over and the dog eating the buds off the watermelon plant once we planted, they did not survive. However, since then I have done more research, spoke with friends in my area, and have learned a few things.

The first is, my wonderful husband is going to build me a fence so the dog cannot get into my garden!!!! Also, in our area we can plant straight in the ground.. and forget about the pesty little seed cups! We live in the desert of So. California.

So this morning, as I ponder how to keep my health up, and our dwindling finances from disappearing. I set my eyes on my favorite seed website.. www.heirloomseeds.com and compiled my wish list. I have now sent out word to my local friends to see who would like to split seed packets to help cut down on cost.

I read a great article on the facebook fanpage of Finders Keepers Educational Supply about using your cardboard from all of that online shopping that you are now doing... you can use it as a weed barrier and mulch. You can read about it here.

My next step is that I will design my garden. I know the placement in my yard. Next dh will build up my fence, and then I will start laying out the foot paths and designed the beds.

I am nowpraying about free an inexpensive soil. There is a local tree place that has free mulch if you can haul it away, so we will do that. I am praying that between our compost, and things I can find for free I won't need to do too much for my soil. We live in an area with very sandy, but hard soil. And it is very difficult soil to plant in, unless you supplement.

I would love to hear how all of you are tackling food bills, eating healthy and gardening.. We are all on this journey together!!!

See you in the garden!